Since the last decade, wireless sensor networks have gained the attention of researchers and have become an essential part in the concept of smart space. The applications of WSN have become worldwide because of its low cost, low energy consumption and the ability of self-organization, especially in the applications of monitoring. On one hand, wireless sensor network is an effectively way of data collection, message transmission and abnormality status report which greatly facilitates data management; on the other hand, WSN could also locate moving targets, trace the source of data and provide global information to navigate and coordinate each individual receiver within the network. This thesis is supported by the national high-tech research project ‘863’ on ‘Health Monitoring System using WSN at No.1 Retirement Home, Shanghai’ and by the robotics group in Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences on ‘Robot Navigation Using Wireless Sensor Network in Indoor Environments’. The author gives a comprehensive analysis of wireless sensor network including its organization, routing, network maintenance, algorithms of localization as well as navigation using WSN. WSN-based robot navigation tries to solve the problem of robot planning in complex indoor environments from a new perspective which is different from the traditional methods. Traditional locating apparatuses such as GPS and odometers are easily affected by obstacles or rough terrains. It is not easily for a mobile robot to locate itself in the environment if its equipment cannot provide useful information. However, wireless sensor network is a good way to provide global information to a mobile robot helping its localization and navigation. The robot could then combine both the global information from the network and its local information from its onboard sensors to make optimal planning judgments.
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